Weird tongue exercises – worked for me!

Hello – This may sound wacky, but it worked for me. For around 15 years I suffered migraines at least monthly, usually related to my cycle. I’d feel sick and headachy and have to go to bed for the whole day.

I started singing lessons a year ago, and my singing teacher said that my tongue was very ‘knotted’. The tongue is a very big muscle, apparently, a lot bigger than what we are aware of, and my tongue muscles going back into my head were very tense. He gave me exercises to free it up, and I as did them my migraines stopped. Might be coincidence, but I thought it worth sharing in case it’s not.

What you do: extend your tongue as far as possible into your right cheek. Slowly move it down between your teeth and your gums, then into the left cheek, then up to the top between teeth and gums and back to the right cheek, so that you’ve done a whole circle – which takes about 4 seconds. Always extend your tongue as far as you can. Do 8 continuous circles clockwise – then 8 anti-clockwise; then do 6 each way, then 4, then 2. It’s quite painful / tiring, specially at first, so don’t overdo it or force yourself – have a rest between cycles. He said once a day, but sometimes I do it more often than this, or do a cycle or two if I feel tension building up.

So are you following around the outside of your teeth to do this? Between your teeth and lip/cheek? And are you doing them with your mouth open? I’m very interested, and want to be sure this is right. If not, it sure made a stretch anyway!

Hi AuroraPhoenix – the object is to stretch your tongue as far as it will go. So yes, I find that I do open my mouth for it – and at the bottom, I drop my jaw so that there’s further to stretch. And yes, the front of the tongue is outside / beyond the teeth all the time, wrapped round them if you like – at the top and bottom, it’s limited by the (I don’t have the correct terminology!) fact that the inside of the lip turns into the top / bottom of the teeth. I can’t stretch it quite as far at the top and bottom as I can push it into the cheeks.

Thanks! I’m going to do these, every if they don’t help with my migraines. My husband says i sometimes have a tendency to mumble if I’m not paying attention to how I’m talking, so maybe this will help with that too!

I know that I carry a load of tension in my jaw muscles, and often notice my tongue moving round my mouth, which I think contributes to it. My tongue is exhausted and quiet after these exercises! So it makes sense that they could relieve a lot of tension in the jaw and neck – freeing up tensed muscles that cause you to mumble. I hope that they help.